New installation advice needed

Billandben

I’d appreciate a bit of advice on the following fresh installation.

I want to install satellite TV in the house. It will require dishes to be at the end of the garden fixed to the garage wall. I’d like a freesat dish as well as a larger (80cm/1mtr?) motorised free to air dish capable of picking up multiple foreign(German/Spanish/French) channels in particular middle-east channels and a digital(saorview) aerial. The garage is approx. 35 mtrs from house and cable will need to travel up to 15mtrs within the house. I’d like to run the freesat to 3 locations and record and watch simultaneously at one of them and run the free to air to two locations and record and watch simultaneously at 1. The saorview aerial will need to connect to 3 locations within the house and be able to record and watch simultaneously at 1.


I’d like to install it myself but I’m unsure about what type of cable to use/or how best to bring the signals down to various boxes in the house. I think I’ll need 7 separate cables from the satellites (4 from the freesat dish, 3 from the other), but will one line from the aerial suffice and can I split that within the house?


I intend to get either a Humax Foxsat HDR or Echostar HDS-600RS to record the freesat, any recommendations? and any basic freesat receivers for the other rooms.


Any recommendations for a good pvr box for the free to air set up? I was thinking of the Technomate TM 71002 or 800 and use it for saorview too, but will I get the full saorview epg with a combo? Would it be a better option to have a separate saorview receiver?


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

1dave

with the motorised set up u only have 1 out put on the lnb. why not put in a multi lnb and diseqc switch.
lengths 35+15. WF125 cable and put lighter cable on either end (WF125 it not flexable) with conpression f connectors.
use a bigger dish to improve signal , cos its signal degradation that happens on long run. you might need a booster. if you go cheap you will end up buying the right stuff later.
1 of the humax freesat+ box has diseqc switch so the 1 box can operate the multi lnb. get all freesat boxes with diseqc. put the cables in a pipe or underground out of the weather/sun.
i dont like combos , messing with channel updates and no epg.
put the saved money from the combo and get sky box and saorview tv instead. the sky box will drive the tv and u got an epg and interactive.

Ronnie Raygun

Billandben wrote: »

... a larger (80cm/1mtr?) motorised free to air dish capable of picking up multiple foreign(German/Spanish/French) channels in particular middle-east channels

You would be well advised to get a dish of at least 1 metre if you want the middle east channels from 26 east or 7 west.

A single large, fixed dish with multiple lnbs might get all you want to get, if you only have particular channels in mind.

Are you mounting it on the garage so it can "see" over the house (rather than put it on the front of the house)?

zg3409

I hope the garage wall is solid and not wooden!!

I would recommend starting small and using some sort of trunking down the garden and into the house so cables can be added and removed as needed.

For the main 28.2 Freesat I would recommend a slightly larger than normal say 80/90cm solid dish. This is needed due to the long runs, and you plans to connect it to multiple receivers.

For 28.2 and lots of receivers it's probably best to have a multiswitch inside the house. If you can afford it a 9 x number of outlets would allow every receiver to have the option of connecting to the motorised dish to watch whatever sat it is pointed at.

Regarding motorised they can be noisy, slow, hard to set up and as said they can only point at one satellite at a time. They are fine as long as you want to receive lots of different satellites on just one receiver.

Many more experienced people just end up with one dish, with mulitple LNBs for the actual TV watching. If you don't want to watch anything, but scan the skys etc then a motorised is the way to go.

Normally each position in the Sky is dedicated to a particular country/area so if you know which language you want, and what position/dish size needed that will answer dish size questions.

Regarding which cable, always use branded cable for long runs, RG6 or other non brand names have unknown quality. Make sure the cable has a full copper screen and full copper centre conductor. The cable will work out quite expensive.

Regarding pointing the dishes yourself forget about a motorised dish until you have set up a non motorised one. Also ideally you want a meter. If you cannot afford one then bring the TV outside some dry, dusk evening with the receiver right beside. Make sure the satellite box is pretuned, ideally at someone's house who has Sky etc. Never use a Sky branded box for pointing a dish. Their signal level is not much good.

One line from the Saorview Aerial if fine. However you would need to test it when split to confirm there is enough left. If not then you might need a booster right beside aerial. This can be powered via coax.

You should also budget carefully. If you end up paying someone you could be looking at 1,000 euro or more. A 9 x 7 multiswitch could be 150 alone, though I got one for fifty.